Nashville Post: Bongo buys WeHo retail space, preps plan

Nashville-based café operator and coffee roasting company Bongo Productions LLC has acquired for $350,000 the retail space from which it will operate in Wedgewood-Houston’s under-construction mixed-use building Six10 Merritt at The Finery.

The acquisition, which recently closed, follows Bongo Productions’ having bought a parcel at the Alloy on Tech Hill property in South Nashville — and to which it eventually will move its roasting operations — at 372 Herron Drive for $450,000.

Nashville-based Core Development was the seller in both transactions. Core created LVH2 LLC for the Alloy deal. (Read more about Alloy on Tech Hill here.)

Bongo’s purchase of the Six10 Merritt at The Finery (pictured) space came at about the same time DragonFly Property LLC closed on Six10’s adjacent retail space for $400,000. DragonFly includes Sarah Voter, who will own and operate from the building Sassafras Market & Deli (read more here).

Located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Merritt Avenue and Martin Street and facing, Six10 Merritt also will include residences: 12 flats, 12 live-work townhomes and two conventional townhomes. In addition to Six10 Merritt, construction is underway on Core companion building Twelve60 Martin, to offer condominiums.

“We’re working on the concept and should be ready to announce it soon,” he said. “We’re excited to be part of another emerging neighborhood.”

Bernstein said Bongo Productions is working to open three cafes and restaurants (Wedgewood-Houston, 1821 Jefferson Street, BOX at 2233 10th Avenue near 12South) hopes to move its roasting operations (previously housed in The Gulch and temporarily located on Dickerson Road) to Alloy at Tech Hill in 2018. In addition, Bernstein is teaming with a group of investors to determine how to reinvent an apartment building located at 2005 Belmont Blvd.

In addition to the roasting business, Bongo Productions operates five cafe/restaurants.

Bernstein, who sold his Gulch property in March for $3.15 million, said the company has taken a “significant percentage” of the proceeds of that transaction to pump back into the Wedgewood-Houston and Alloy on Tech Hill property acquisitions.

“We have become as much a real estate investment company as we are a restaurant company,” he said.